264
Giuseppe Compagnoni
Secret correspondence on the public and private life of the Count of Cagliostro, 1791
Estimate
€ 100 - 120
Sold
€ 284
The price includes buyer's premium
Do you have a similar item you would like to sell?
Information
Venice, at the author's expense; found for sale in Venice [probably Antonio Zatta], 1791. In 8th. The portrait of the author, otherwise a perfect specimen in beards, is missing in its original hardcover.
Specialist Notes
"Little known, except to specialists, and practically unpublished, the Secret Correspondence on the public and private life of the Count of Cagliostro (Venice, 1791) was published anonymously during the Roman trial (1790-1791), which ended with the conviction of the Count to perpetual prison. It is now established that the operetta should be attributed to the abbot Giuseppe Compagnoni (1754-1833), a multifaceted figure of journalist and man of letters, who, probably to avoid trouble from the Inquisition, preferred to keep his identity secret and that of his correspondents, of whom he published real or imaginary correspondence, the not too hidden aim of which was to provide the vast public of the time with first-hand news on the ongoing trial and the mysterious initiatory past of the great Accused. (. ..) There is probably no personality in the history of eighteenth-century European occultism who has raised greater and more incandescent diatribes than Giuseppe Balsamo, alias Alessandro Conte di Cagliostro (1743-1795).The fact is clear proof of this that, more than two centuries after the farce trial which first caused his unjust detention and then his tragic end, the interest that flourished around his figure as a magician, alchemist, thaumaturge and founder of Egyptian Freemasonry does not even remotely hint , to decrease. (...)" (from the modern edition published by Luni Editrice in 2017).